J.J. Abrams' Star Trek series featured Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldaña, and Simon Pegg in its ensemble. Justified star Timothy Olyphant nearly played one of those roles if not for a bonkers reason.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Olyphant recalled his Star Trek audition. “Here's what I can tell you about Star Trek: I went in and auditioned not for Captain Kirk, but I remember reading with J.J. Abrams and he's just a lovely, lovely guy. And [it was] just a lovely, lovely audition process,” he said. “Somewhere in there, I was auditioning for Doc, he's like, ‘I already got a guy for Doc, so I don't need you for that, but I don't have a Kirk.'”

The role of Dr. Leonard McCoy ultimately went to Karl Urban.

“I believe it was one of those things where it's like they might have been prepared to hire me, but they wanted somebody younger, and [Abrams] was having a hard time finding somebody younger,” Olyphant revealed. “And somewhere along the line, J.J. called and said, ‘I found a guy, younger, who’s really good.'”

Captain Kirk went to Chris Pine, and he would lead the proceeding two films, Into Darkness and Beyond, as well. The films have cumulatively grossed over $1 billion at the box office.

Timothy Olyphant went on to star in Justified for FX from 2010-2015. On the film side, he has starred in Rango, Snowden, Missing Link, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, National Champions, and Amsterdam. Coming up, he will star alongside Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker in Gareth Evans' Havoc.